


The Games People Play

by inlovewithnight



Category: RPF - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:47:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set during the filming of King Arthur.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Games People Play

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the filming of King Arthur.

"You're going to get me in trouble, you know," Ioan says, sitting down beside her on the steps. He's wearing jeans and a faded jumper, and they make him look smaller than his costume does, all the leather and mail adding bulk where nature tends more toward lines and angles.

She's been stealing cigarettes from him the whole shoot, if stealing is the word when the original owner knows damn well you're doing it and thinks it's funny. This version of Lancelot may be a humorless, brooding bastard, but you wouldn't know it from Ioan when the cameras are off. Everything gets a smile and a laugh.

"I don't even smoke most of them," she says. "Only when you're watching."

"Trying to turn me off, then?" He leans back on his elbows, smirking at her.

"You look like some sort of serial killer in that beard, you know." She hides a smile behind her hand and flicks the ashes off the end of the fag. "And that's a bit hypocritical of you, given that you smoke like a chimney."

"I'm sorry, did someone give you the impression I was consistent? Couldn't have been anyone who's met me."

"Mmm. Maybe I asked your girlfriend." She knows it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it's out of her mouth, but she just takes another puff and holds on to the air of cool that was the first trick of the trade a girl had to learn.

His smile doesn't falter, though he glances away from her for a moment. "Believe me, she'd be the first to say inconsistent, if not flat-out mad."

She rolls the cigarette between her fingers for a moment. "She's very pretty. Your girlfriend."

"I know." He shifts on the step, digging his lighter out of his pocket and flicking it on and off, over and over again.

She glances sideways at him. "Does thinking about her make this more fun?"

Give him credit, he doesn't flinch. "Which this exactly? Smoking? Sitting on steps? Filming ridiculous set pieces with swords and horses and Clive bellowing at the top of his lungs half the day?"

"This thing we do." She stretches her sleeves down past her hands and curls her fingers up inside them. "This little game we play."

"Are we playing a game, then?" His eyes are carefully unreadable, his face blank, only his hands restless and alive, rolling the lighter back and forth and flicking it alight and off again and again.

"If you were going to pretend to be stupid, you should've started a while ago." She wraps her arms around herself, stitches somewhere in her jumper popping and giving as it stretches. "It wouldn't be any fun if we didn't both know we were playing. I do the whole Lolita bit, which is ridiculous given that I'm eighteen years old and I've been doing this job half my life. And you go back and forth between clueless and dirty old man depending on the day, which is just as ridiculous, since the one cancels out the other and you're not even all that old."

"I'll be thirty by the end of filming," he points out, stretching his legs out down the steps. "That's old enough. And I've already had Clive and Hugh both pull me aside and tell me to watch my step with you, so I'm not sure if we're very good at this game or absolutely awful."

"I'm not sure it's a game we play for the audience so much as for ourselves." She rests her cheek on her hand and glances at him again. "Also, I sort of think Hugh just is trying to get you alone in a dark corner, or something, so maybe you should be more worried about that than about me."

He raises an eyebrow at her, and she wants to reach over and trace it with her thumb, except the whole mood's gone wrong and it's all terribly serious all of a sudden and she thinks she missed a step somewhere, something she hasn't done since she _was_ fifteen and playing the Lolita around the set just to see if she could.

"Addressing the second part first--" he says, "I didn't realize that anything with either of you was anything I should be _worried_ about. And as for the first part..." He shakes his head and digs around in his pocket again, fishing the last fag out of the crumpled end of a pack, taking it between his lips, and flicking the lighter again. "You're far too old for your age," he mumbles.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." She shakes her head, irritated beyond what this deserves, at herself and him and this ridiculous fucking movie and...everything. "Don't patronize me."

"I didn't mean it that way," he says, sincerely enough that she looks at him. "Truly. I just..." He frowns and takes a long drag. "It's all bullshit, you know."

"Yes," she says flatly. "I am familiar. In fact, I'm female, so there's at least twenty-five percent _more_ bullshit for me, if you're keeping track."

"Right, right." He nods and stubs the cigarette out, only half-finished. "But, you know. Don't take it too bloody seriously. Make your living and do the good stuff if you have the inclination and the time and just...well, you know all of this and I'm being patronizing again." He frowns, even more terribly serious than before, and she entertains a moment's fantasy of leaning over and kissing him. It would be something perfectly out of a movie, completely unreal, completely insane. Completely out of bounds even in amidst their fun and games, the jokes about Lancelot pining after Arthur and not even getting a snog, mocking Clive's misery and Ray's dislike of the horses. Forgetting that even fantasyland has rules is what gets girls and boys into trouble.

Fuck, maybe he's right, maybe she is too old for her age.

"You know what I think?" he says, shoving the lighter back into his pocket and getting to his feet, a slow unfolding of limbs. "I think we need to go have a few drinks and see if we can't remember that we have the good luck to get paid ridiculous sums of money to play dress-up, and we should live it up while we can before they realize their mistake and take it all away from us."

"I'd no idea you were a conspiracy theorist." She boosts herself up, not seeing his offered hand until she's on her feet.

"Everyone needs a hobby," he says with a shrug.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Nothing about blood tests or measurements."

"Charming." And she's back on her footing again, she's sure of herself. "It's actually a serious character-oriented sort of question."

"Oh, well, in that case." He glances at her and grins, his eyes hopeful, and she realizes that he's checking his own footing here as well, making sure he's not stepped wrong. She should remember that, that they're all just as hopeless and insecure, that none of them knows what the fuck they're doing and...well, yes, children playing dress-up after all.

"Assuming we were doing the standard version of the story instead of the one where Lancelot is absolutely glued to Arthur's arse," she says, blithely ignoring his mock glare, "what is it that draws him to Guinevere?"

He thinks for a moment, then offers her his arm as they start off down the street. "I would imagine it has something to do with her breasts."

She rolls her eyes and jabs her elbow into his ribs, but doesn't let go. "There's an insight to carry with me all of my days...actually, given our line of work, it really rather is."

"Don't let the bastards get you down."

"Oh, I won't," she says, smiling. "Not a chance."

  



End file.
